During the late fall season, when domestically grown marijuana changes color at harvest time, the Humboldt County Sheriff's office routinely flew one of its helicopters over many of the backyards of the Humboldt County residents

Question

On one of these over flights, a sheriff's deputy recognized what appeared to be multiple marijuana plants growing in one backyard. The officer confirmed the original suspicion by reducing the helicopter's altitude and getting a closer look. There was no doubt that the plant growing in the backyard was marijuana. Complete with the following correct response.
A) Flying above the backyards of the Humboldt County residents looking for those residents who grow marijuana violates their expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment by conducting a search without any probable cause.
B) The plain view doctrine will not work here because the most people understand that police spotting of the marijuana would normally be unlikely since the discovery of criminality under the plain view doctrine must be inadvertent and not a planned event. Here the discovery was planned by the police when they went looking for growing marijuana and expected to find some growing.
C) The plain view doctrine would have been appropriate had the pilot not lowered his altitude. That constituted an additional search in violation of the expectation of privacy of the occupier of the backyard marijuana patch.
D) This overflight designed to observe marijuana growing meets the requirements of the plain view doctrine, and the officers were not violating any expectation of privacy possessed by the marijuana-growing resident.
E) Both C and D indicate correct responses.

Answer 1

D